


If You Pay Me, I Can Play The Fool

by why_me_why_not



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-29
Updated: 2011-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-18 19:06:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/why_me_why_not/pseuds/why_me_why_not
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beginning of Walt-as-an-escort AU.  Ray hates birthdays.  Title comes from Cobra Starship's Prostitution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Pay Me, I Can Play The Fool

Ray wasn't that fond of birthdays. His first few were pretty good; there are plenty of pictures of his smiling, _dirty_ face and his momma laughing and assorted friends and family in the background. No dad, though. He was in the pictures from the few days after Momma brought Ray home from the hospital, but he was long gone before Ray blew out the candle on his first birthday cake. Ray was pretty sure he had inherited some type of "deserter" gene; it was one of the reasons he avoided commitment and talks of babies and all that other bullshit like it was some sort of plague.

When Ray turned seven, his Momma got him a puppy, a big boxer lab mix that was twice his size within six months. Ray named her Cookie and wouldn't fall asleep without her laying on the end of his bed. She was the last decent present he remembered getting, and she made a heck of a companion as he listened to the adults whispering around him and watched as Momma got thinner and thinner, and spent more time in the bed when she was home and more time in the hospital than at home.

The party for Ray's eighth birthday was at the skate center. He and Sammy Compton got into a fight over Lizzie Miller, and Ray went home missing one of his front teeth. Sammy went home with a black eye, though, so it was all good.

Ray spent his ninth birthday lying on his Momma's bed watching cartoons, careful not to squeeze too tightly even though he desperately wanted to hug her and never let her go, to drown out the Cancer with all the hope and love in his heart.

Ray turned ten hiding under a table at his Momma's wake, listening to his relatives argue. No one wanted to take an underweight kid and an overweight dog. That was okay, because Ray didn't want any of them either.

Ray's childhood wasn't _bad_. He wasn't neglected or abused or mistreated or homeless like some kids. But it wasn't the life memories are made of either. He spent a few years with his grandmother, another couple with an aunt a few towns over, but nothing was ever _home_.

On Ray's eighteenth birthday, two very important, life-altering events occurred.

The first was that Cookie died, and Ray swore to himself that he wasn't getting attached to anyone or anything again.

The second was that Ray joined the Corps.

Joining the Marines was the best decision Ray ever made, even if that was hard to remember when he was aching and tired and frustrated from training and drills and fucking command bullshit. It was a challenge, and a way to prove that he was more than a scrawny orphan. Plus, it got him Brad. Brad was a snarky, sarcastic asshole at the best of times, but he was Ray's snarky, sarcastic asshole, and he was Ray's best friend _all_ the time, whether he admitted it or not.

Ray spent his twenty-first birthday getting wasted on libo in Sydney - copious amounts of alcohol, a few hookers, and Brad picking up the tab for it all - and by the time the sun came up in the States and it was officially his birthday, he was puking up everything he had ever eaten and suffering through the worst hangover of his _life_.

Eventually, the Corps gave Ray Bravo, his brothers. His _family_. He loved them, in his own fucked up way, except when he didn't. Like right now.

Ray looked from the card in his hand - signed by Lilley and Chaffin, the bastards - back to the kid standing on his doorstep. Kid. He couldn't be more than a few years younger than Ray's twenty-five-year-old self (twenty-four, his mind helpfully supplied; twenty-four for a few more hours), and he obviously was not as innocent as he appeared, but he was still a kid.

He was also, according to the note on the card, Ray's birthday present. Ray had purposely not told anyone in Bravo that his birthday was coming up. Brad knew, but he wouldn't have volunteered the information, especially as part of a scheme like this.

"Jesus Christ," Ray finally said, "you would think for as much as I talk about pussy, those assholes would have known to get me a _girl_."

"I can go," the kid offered, gesturing back down the hallway like it wasn't a big deal. It probably wasn't; he had certainly been paid in advance.

Ray thought about it, then swung the apartment door open a little wider. "You play Grand Theft Auto?"

And so for Ray's twenty-fifth birthday, he met Walt


End file.
